Do the CEOs get the CHROs they deserve?

“CEOs get the CHROs they deserve!”, said the Senior HR leader when he was highly frustrated. This was my seventh ‘encounter’ with this gentleman (See 'Passion for work and anasakti ‘, 'Appropriate metaphors for organizational commitment ‘ ,‘To name or not to name, that is the question’ , ‘A Mathematical approach to HR’, ‘OD Quest’ and ‘Of leaders and smiling depression’  for the outcomes of my previous interactions with him). Similar to what happened in the previous occasions, this comment prompted me to think deeply about the topic.

Yes, a CEO can try to get the  type of CHRO he/she wants by 'shaping' the behavior of the current CHRO, bringing in a new CHRO etc. The degree of success of this attempt will vary based on the context and the people involved. Of course, if a CEO is looking for a difficult to find set of capabilities in the CHRO and/or if the organization context is not suitable for attracting and retaining the type of CHRO the CEO is looking for, things can get complicated. The CEO-CHRO interaction is a human interaction and hence personality related factors, connect related factors and fit related factors (including that of the unstated definitions of 'what good looks like') come into play. Sometimes, the perceived lack of alignment is just a matter of perception. For example, the CEO might think that the CHRO doesn't understand the business context and the CHRO might think that the CEO is too shortsighted! It can work the other way also. The CEO and the CHRO can form a 'mutual admiration society' and ignore problems that adversely affect organization effectiveness! 

There is no doubt on the importance of the CEO-CHRO relationship, for them and for the rest of the organization. The CEO and the CHRO need to work very closely with each other on a lot of important and/or sensitive matters, and hence an effective relationship between them based on mutual respect and trust is critical. Lack of alignment between the CEO and CHRO, apart from creating a lot of frustration for both of them, can slow down decision-making, lead to suboptimal decisions, reduce response speed on critical issues and also lead to lack of commitment and passive resistance. It can also give the impression to the rest of the organization that the leadership team is like a 'house divided against itself'. 

Again, there is no doubt on whether the HR function (and the CHRO as the head of HR) should be business-oriented/business-aligned. HR exists to support the business and hence it should be aligned to the business needs/goals/strategy. ‘HR for HR’ (‘I want to do some HR interventions and I will get the business leaders to agree’) is definitely not a good idea. The problem occurs when we look at how exactly should HR demonstrate this 'business-orientation'.

There are multiple possibilities here - each with its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, the CHRO can agree to whatever the CEO says on people related issues ('after all, we get paid to support the business'). The CHRO can take this approach to the next level by trying to ‘guess’ what the CEO will be comfortable with and advocating that ('the CEO is our primary internal customer and we should be anticipating customer needs'). The CHRO can also avoid surfacing issues (or suggesting solutions) that he/she thinks the CEO will not be comfortable with ('business leaders are already stretched to the limits fighting for the survival of the company, how can we risk annoying them at this point ?').

This approach might help in reducing the number/intensity of possible arguments/conflicts between the CHRO and the CEO and the associated investment of time and emotional energy, leading to faster decision-making and smoother relationships. In this case, the CEO might ‘like’ the CHRO and will be more likely to support the CHRO in the roll out of basic HR processes and less likely to come down heavily on the CHRO when the CHRO/HR team makes a mistake. Hence, conflicts are avoided - making life easier for both the parties involved. However, this can also lead to sub-optimal decisions (see 'Training the victim' for an example).

The other option is to develop and articulate an independent point of view – based on the HR philosophy of the organization, HR functional expertise and an assessment of the context/situation.

Yes, this point of view might turn out to be different from what the CEO has in mind/is comfortable with and hence this can create conflicts and lengthy discussions/arguments and possibly delays in decision-making. The CEO might feel that ‘HR does not understand the problems that the business is facing’, ‘HR is becoming a pain in the neck’ or that ‘HR is being too idealistic’. This might lead to a situation where the CEO becomes very demanding – questioning the rationale behind each of the initiatives that HR comes up with. Therefore, this option can make life more difficult for both the parties involved. However, if the conflict can be managed constructively, this option can lead to superior decisions and also to the development of mutual respect and trust. Of course, there is no guarantee that this can be achieved in all the situations.

It is also possible that the CEO was more open than what the CHRO had guessed. Maybe, the CEO wanted the CHRO to make an independent recommendation. Again, it is possible that the CHRO’s ‘independent assessment’ of the business needs/constraints was totally off the mark, making his/her point of view completely unrealistic. Maybe, the context is such that the conflict of opinion can’t be resolved successfully quickly enough for the matter at hand. Thus, there are many possibilities here.

It can be said that if we take a long-term perspective, if both the parties are competent and open and if the conflict can be managed constructively and quickly enough, the second option will give better results. But that is too many ‘ifs’ (3 in the last sentence!). It can also be argued that the two options mentioned above are just two extremes and that reality lies somewhere in between. For example, a particular CHRO might adopt option 1 in the case of some issues and option 2 in the case of other issues – depending on the context/nature of the issues. After all, ‘picking and choosing one’s battles’ is supposed to be a key requirement for survival in the corporate world!

An important factor here is the credibility of the CHRO/nature of the relationship between the CHRO and the business leaders including the CEO. It is possible that the CHRO hasn't paid sufficient attention to positioning of the HR function appropriately, managing/shaping expectations, building capability and consistently meeting commitments/delivering value, enhancing the levels of mutual respect and trust etc. This can lead to serious problems because effectively managing the relationships with the business leaders can be the most significant enabler for demonstrating and sustaining the 'business-orientation' we have been talking about.

In this discussion about 'business-orientation' we should not forget the other customers of HR- like the employees and line managers. There is an increasing tendency on the part of HR to give less emphasis to the ‘employee champion’ role because of the increasing importance given to the ‘strategic business partner role’. This can easily lead to situations where there is not enough focus on ‘employee engagement’ (other than the cosmetic efforts/peripheral initiatives – see 'Employee engagement and the story of the Sky maiden’ for details). Of course, there are 'special-cause variations' in the focus (or lack of it) on employee engagement. For example, in response to the 'great resignation', currently there is a lot of focus (talk?) on employee engagement. 

As it is widely known, employee engagement is a good predictor/lead indicator of business results. Thus, if this 'business-orientation' (and being the 'strategic business partner') is achieved at the expense of 'employee' engagement, the result might be 'strategic (long-term) harm' to the business. This is not to say that when the business is under financial stress, the CHRO should ignore the boundary conditions set by the same. The point is just that the focus on employee engagement shouldn't be lost though the actual manifestations of this focus can be different under different circumstances (see 'Of employee engagement and the survivor syndrome' for details).  

It is also interesting to model this situation using the concepts of 'static' and 'dynamic' equilibrium (A chair has static equilibrium. A bicycle in motion has dynamic equilibrium. In a state of static equilibrium there is balance, but no change or movement that exists in the case of dynamic equilibrium). A 'live and let live' kind of arrangement between HR and business leaders (that avoids conflict) is similar to 'static equilibrium'. But, a scenario in which HR and business leaders openly and clearly state their independent opinions, followed by constructive debate/conflict leading to decisions that both the parties are comfortable with is similar to 'dynamic equilibrium'. This does not mean that the parties can't be passionate about their points of view/express 'strong' opinions. The requirement is just that they should not get too much attached to their opinions.

In general, dynamic equilibrium provides richer possibilities. However, establishing dynamic equilibrium might not be required or even feasible in all the cases. It requires more time, effort and skill (as the equilibrium needs to be constantly reestablished) . It is also more risky (you are more likely to have a fall from a bicycle as compared to that from a chair - especially when you are learning to ride - which can be compared to the 'establishing the relationship' phase that we discussed earlier!).

A key enabler for this dynamic equilibrium is for the CHRO to work with the business leaders to crystallize the HR Philosophy/the basic tenets of people management in the organization (see ‘Towards a philosophy of HR’ for details). This will also enable HR to come with quick and effective responses to various issues/situations – based on the people management philosophy of the organization, HR functional expertise and an assessment of the context/situation.  This is not to say that the people management philosophy is cast in stone. The people management philosophy can be revisited as the organization and its environment evolves. Also, if there are extraordinary situations, extraordinary responses are required!

So, do the CEOs get the CHROs they deserve? ‘Probably, to a large extent’ – is the best answer that I can come up with at this point. After all, the CEOs hire and fire the CHROs and are their direct managers (with the associated powers of 'carrot and stick'). Also, the CEOs want the CHROs to be aligned to them. This doesn’t mean that the CHROs can’t influence the CEOs. A lot of CHROs manage to do this. Yes, this requires competence, deep business-understanding, courage to speak truth to power, and clarity on values. The CHROs won't be earning their salary if they don't put forward their professional opinion. If CEOs want someone who will just execute whatever they ask without discussion, such a person can be hired at a much lower salary than what CHROs are paid. Also, the CHROs are not trees - CHROs can move (to another organization with a different CEO)! If all these are true, why do the CEOs get the CHROs they deserve to large extent?

One possible factor here is the hierarchical nature of many of the organizations. In hierarchical organizations, if the CHRO disagrees with the CEO, it can very easily get misinterpreted as 'lack business-understanding', ‘lack of competence’ or as ‘lack of trust in the judgment of the leader’. The relatively 'fuzzy' nature of the HR domain (that makes it difficult to prove or disprove things conclusively) also contributes to this. Yes, the CHROs also realize that there are no perfect CEOs/ organizations that would exactly match their preferences and hence learn to adjust (to varying degrees).  

Of course, there are other factors. Let's look at one of them. I spent the first five years of my career in HR in HR consulting. One of the things that amazed me was how easy it was to into walk into any organization, do a diagnosis and find many areas where there was potential for significant improvement. Why would the CHROs (who were much more experienced than me) fail to identify and act on those areas? Initially, I thought that this was mainly because of the ‘fresh eyes’, specialized diagnostic tools and 'learning from other contexts' that the external consultant brings in. Now, I am convinced that that there is much more to this.

Many of the organizations are not optimized for effectiveness. Organizations tend to gravitate towards a way of working that is most comfortable for the people who run it – even if it takes away from the effectiveness and efficiency. Of course, the leaders would like to believe (and make others believe) that what they are doing is the best way of functioning. Perpetuating this ‘convenient collective delusion’ (or at least not disturbing it) is often one of the unstated expectations the leaders have from the CHROs. This works even better if the CHRO is someone with impressive credentials – with best of the qualifications and prior experience in reputed MNCs and with a reputation for having done transformational work in those organizations. If such a person is the CHRO and he/she is not doing any transformation in the current organization, then the organization must be perfect – without any need to change!!!!

Of course, there is a positive side to 'CEOs getting the CHROs they deserve'. Progressive CEOs get (hire/retain/develop) progressive CHROs. There are indeed a lot of CEOs who push their CHROs to focus on  building an effective organization that is a great place to work, and also support the CHROs in this endeavor. These CEOs also set an example by role modeling the right behaviors. Again, we have no reason to believe that there are more 'good' CHROs in the industry than 'good' CEOs! 

We must also remember that there is a larger organization ecosystem that both the CEO and the CHRO are part of and it has expectations and/or influence on the CEO, CHRO and the CEO-CHRO relationship. Also, the strength and tone of the relationship that the CHRO has with the other CXOs in the company might have an indirect influence on the CEO-CHRO relationship. In MNCs and in companies that are part of a business group, the CHRO is likely to have an additional reporting manager (apart from the CEO) and this also influences the CEO-CHRO relationship/power balance! Yes, the strength of this influence will depend on the strength/nature of this additional reporting and the personalities involved. Therefore, the power that the CEO has over the CHRO (and on the decisions related to the CHRO role) will not be an absolute one! Also, CEOs are often people who have spent many years in organizations and hence learned to live with some degree of 'imperfections' in organization life. Hence, they might not have the compulsion to get exactly the kind of CHRO they want!

Any comments/ideas?

Remarkable Encounters – Part 2 : Fear

It is said that we discover some parts of ourselves only in the context of our interaction with others. Some of these interactions are so enriching that they leave us feeling more complete, integrated, alive and human. In this series of posts, we will look at the impressions from some of the remarkable encounters I have had. In the first post, we looked at my impressions from the encounter with a remarkable teacher (See Remarkable Encounters – Part 1 : Teacher). In this post, we will look at a constant companion to many of us – fear. Now, fear is not a (legal) person. But, the amount of time many of us spend with fear and the impact fear has on us would make fear more real than many humans in our lives. Hence, fear gate-crashes into this series!

‘Do you have an independent existence?’, I have often wondered. Because it is always ‘fear of something’ and not fear itself that is commonly mentioned. Yes, it can be a general sense of fearfulness, when we can’t identify a particular cause or when there are multiple causes.

Some people say that you are just a label, or an ‘umbrella term’, that we attach to a physiological reactions to danger triggered by the hormones generated by amygdala in the brain, and, that animals also can feel fear though they don’t bother to attach a label to it or talk about it. They just do the fight or flight response and resolve the fear! In humans, the danger can be psychological or ideological in addition to physical ones, with the first two being much more difficult to run away from! Only the innocent, the ignorant or the psychologically damaged are immune to fear!

In my journey with you over the last four decades, I have got to know you a lot better. It is funny that while you are real, you can be caused by both real and imaginary things. The unknown and the unpredictable usually outweigh the known and predictable as the causes. What is rational fear and what is irrational fear (phobia) is not always crystal clear because when and how much fear should be felt is often socially conditioned. You have many shades ranging from mild uneasiness to terror and horror. Fear can be conscious, sub-conscious or even unconscious with the unconscious ones being more difficult to surface and address. Fear can be developed through direct experience or vicariously. Some fears (e.g. fear of snakes and fear of heights) could even have been hardwired into humans during biological evolution. Fear is also powerful motivator (See The power of carrot and stick). Since fear can be conceptualized as chemical, biological, psychological, sociological or even moral reaction or any combination of them, the prescriptions to deal with fear vary widely!  

While you are inevitable, the response to you is a matter of choice at least in humans. You have a great ability to grow if we think too much about you or even when we try not to think about you. And you diminish if we can find something else to occupy the psychological space you occupy. Love is a great candidate to push you out and so are  enthusiasm and purpose. Yes, enthusiasm means ‘’being possessed/inspired by God’’ and love is also not too different! Religion can both take away some fears and create new fears. But spirituality does a better job of taking away fears than creating fears!

Fear is a clean emotion, a useful warning signal, and essential for survival as individuals and as a society. Quite a bit of the power of the state is derived from its ability invoke fear by the threat of punishment. Also, the fear of a common enemy has held together many states in the absence of a common purpose!. 

It is interesting that while humans are pain avoiding creatures, many of them will pay to experience fear, say by purchasing tickets for horror movies. May be, a minimum dose of fear is required! Yes, too much fear can be dysfunctional. Fear is a much more useful feeling that its cousin anxiety, which occurs as the result of threats that are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable. Fear is one of the basic set of human emotions and  the ability to fear is one of the things that makes us human. It is the layers that we build on fear that causes most of the trouble.

The list of things that can evoke fear is practically endless – from death to public speaking and everything in between including polar opposites like intimacy & loneliness, success &   failure and freedom & restriction. But the most debilitating fear is the fear of fear, because (being a second order fear) it escapes our built-in machinery (which is a first order one) to deal with fear! 

Being able to acknowledge the fear and feel the fear without fearing the fear itself has been my greatest learning from my long journey with fear because it enables more constructive and hopeful responses to fear. Interestingly, just being able to name/identify/articulate the fear is highly therapeutic (may be that is why 'getting the ghost to reveal its name' is so important in exorcism rituals!) as it reduces the degree of control/impact the fear has on us. Gradual/controlled exposure to the feared object/situation puts us on the royal road out of the land of fear, which is by working through it. I have also found it insightful to map what my fears are at a particular stage in my life and to examine how they evolve. May be, fear is a useful indicator to facilitate both our external and internal journeys!

The power of ‘carrot and stick’

It seems rather ‘regressive’ for someone who calls himself an ‘Organization Development Professional’ to write a post on ‘the power of carrot and stick’. Haven’t we transcended the ‘carrot and stick’ method of motivating employees a long time ago (at least after Frederick Herzberg came up with the ‘two-factor'/'motivation - hygiene’ theory almost 50 years ago)?

The objective of this post is not to recommend or to praise the ‘carrot and stick method’. It is just to examine the actual situation in this domain (in terms of both theory and practice) and to explore the possible reasons for the 'power of carrot and stick'. We will also look at possible responses to this situation - from both the employee's and the employer's points of view.

While today's organizations are unlikely to talk about the 'carrot and stick method', if we analyze the methods that are actually being used by organizations to 'motivate' their employees, we are likely to find a high amount of ‘carrot and stick’ element in them. Of course, the ‘carrots’ and ‘sticks’ have become more sophisticated. But, in time of ‘organization stress’ (e.g. the recent economic downturn) some of this sophistication often disappears and more crude forms of ‘carrot and stick’ (that were thought to have become extinct) reappear!

Let us come back to Herzberg. Technically speaking, the ‘two factor’ theory of Herzberg is primarily about ‘satisfaction and dissatisfaction’ – and not exactly about motivation (as job satisfaction might not necessarily lead to motivation or productivity). So it seems possible that the ‘carrot and stick’ method of 'motivation' might be very much alive – both ‘in theory' (more about this later in this post) and ‘in practice'.

Now, let us examine why the 'carrot and stick method' works so well. I think that the power of ‘carrot and stick’ emanates mainly from the fact that it takes advantage of two of the most basic human emotions -‘desire’ and ‘fear’. To be more explicit, ‘carrot’ scores a direct hit on ‘desire’ and ‘stick’ does the same on ‘fear’. It can be argued that if we use the terms ‘desire’ and ‘fear’ in a broad sense, most of the human emotions (and hence most of the human behavior and motivation!) can be ‘modeled’ in terms of these two (and the human responses to them).

If we push the above argument a little further, it can be deduced that the so called ‘content theories’ of motivation (especially those that talk about fulfillment of ‘needs’ – e.g. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, ERG theory, McClelland’s theory of needs etc.) can’t distance themselves too much from ‘desire’ element (and hence from ‘carrot and stick’). Similarly, if we take a close look at some of the ‘process theories’ of motivation (e.g. Expectancy theory) we might be able to detect elements of ‘carrot and stick' in them also (e.g. especially in the 'valance' part of the 'expectancy - instrumentality - valance' chain/of the cognitive process that leads to motivation, as per the Expectancy theory).

If we consider motivation as a 'state of mind' (i.e. something that happens in the mind of a person), 'carrot and stick' (or anything external to that person, like what the manager/ employer does) can't directly cause motivation to occur - it can only create a situation where motivation is likely to be 'triggered'. Again, the method for applying carrots and/or sticks for maximum effectiveness (especially if we take the sustainability of the effectiveness account), can become quite complex. There have been quite a few studies on the effectiveness of various types of positive and/or negative reinforcement strategies to elicit desired responses. So the 'power' of 'carrot and stick' does not imply that the application (of 'carrot and stick') is always easy!

Now, let us look at this situation from the other side – from the point of view of the employee who is at the ‘receiving end’ of these motivation strategies. From the above discussion, it can be seen that if an employee wants to be immune from the power of ‘carrot and stick’, he/she should develop immunity from ‘desire and fear’ – at least those types of desires and fears that can be leveraged/manipulated by the employer. Easier said than done – I must admit - for most of the 'real' people in 'real' organizations! By the way, in the novel 'Siddartha' by Hermann Hesse, there is a beautiful description of how this method of motivation (implemented through an incentive scheme - with a significant upside and downside for the employee) attempted by an employer (Kamaswami, the rich merchant) fails to have any impact on an employee (Siddartha) who had transcended 'desire and fear' ("Siddartha can think, Siddartha can wait, Siddartha can fast"). It is also interesting to note that this novel was first published in 1922 - much before 'HRD' (in the current sense of the term) came into existence.

My point is not that most of the human beings are nothing more than bundles of ‘desires and fears’. We are capable of other emotions (like love, sense of pride, sense of duty, quest for purpose/meaning etc.) that might go beyond ‘fear and desire’. So it should be possible to find ways of motivation based on these 'higher' emotions. However, these higher emotions might not be very easy to ‘manipulate’ in an organization setting. Please see 'Passion for work and anasakti' for a more detailed discussion on this.

Now, let me tell you a little bit about incident that triggered the thought process that resulted in this post. One of my friends asked me to comment on an article which argued that ‘Leaders should inspire people as opposed to motivating them’. When I thought about this, I felt that the situation was a bit more complex than what it appeared to be – when we look at what really happens in many organizations. Most of the organizations have an essentially top-down goal setting/goal cascade process. While individuals might have some degree of freedom to shape their roles/deliverables, individual goals must add up to the corporate goals. Also, organizations usually hire people to do a particular job (which might even have a formal job description that details the job responsibilities). These factors can lead to a situation where a large part of what needs to be done by a particular employee has been 'fixed'/‘mandated’ or even 'imposed'. If what you need to do is fixed, then whether the leader ‘inspires you’ or ‘motivates you’ to get the same thing done can become essentially a matter of semantics!

I also feel that ‘inspiring someone’ (creating a situation where someone might become inspired- to be precise) is a more unpredictable process (in terms of outcomes) as compared to 'motivating someone' (to do a particular task – say through carefully applied positive and/or negative reinforcement - including the promise/threat of applying/withdrawing positive and negative reinforcement or ‘carrots and sticks’ !). No, I am not endorsing the 'morality' of these 'motivation' techniques. I am just saying that they are possible. I must also mention that there could be situations where these techniques might fail. For example, it is easy to create 'incentives' (financial and non financial) for someone to write a book. But, whether this can result in a 'great book' (if the author is not really inspired to write the book) is debatable. However, the fact still remains that 'inspiration' is often a complex (and elusive!) phenomenon.

While, your manager can 'inspire' you, what you will end up doing based on (triggered by) that inspiration can’t always be predicted accurately. So, if the objective is to get you to do a particular task, I am not sure if the pure inspiration route will always work. Any attempt to make the inspiration more controlled, will bring in the element of manipulation that this inspiration approach is trying to avoid. Of course, if we are talking about a community with no predefined goals (as opposed to organizations that usually have predefined/ mandated goals) then this inspiration approach might work – though no one can predict what will exactly will the outcome be (at the individual and at the community level – considering ‘interaction effects’ and ‘emergence’)!!

Well, it can be seen that the post that I ended up writing (based on the above trigger) went much beyond a response to the immediate ‘provocation’. May be I was inspired (as opposed to just being motivated)!!!

Now, over to you for your comments!

Note 1: It might be possible to make a distinction between actions that we take because of some sort of compulsion and those we take because we really want to do so (e.g. between compliance and commitment). The problem here is that compulsion does not necessarily mean coercion (at least not in the usual meaning of the term 'coercion') - any sort of 'inducement' can also imply compulsion. In a way, all we can observe is the action and the reason behind the action is some thing that we infer - especially in the case of other people. Even if we are talking about our own actions and the reasons for those actions there is the problem of rationalization (e.g. we can attribute the 'good' actions to intrinsic motivation and the 'not so good' actions to external compulsions). Hence the distinction between the two types of actions can get blurred.

Note 2: In this post, the term 'desire' has been used in a broad sense. This makes it easy to link 'needs' and 'carrots' to this term. But it can also be argued that if we use broad definitions for fear and desire, even the 'higher order' emotions mentioned above (like love, sense of pride/ duty/ purpose/ meaning etc.) can be mapped to/'reduced to' (at least, in the 'factor analysis' sense) the core emotions of fear and desire. To deal with this, we need to define these terms (terms like desire, fear, love, sense of purpose and of course the terms action/ motion/ movement, motivation, and inspiration) more precisely and in a manner that has internally consistency/ coherence (at least 'arbitrary coherence' -as Dan Ariely says in his book 'Predictably Irrational') . But that involves too much work (may be even a lifetime of work!) which is beyond the scope of this post.

Note 3: Now, that I have mentioned the name of Dan Ariely, I must also say that I am fascinated by the work that behavioral economists (like Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler & Dan Ariely) have done in exploring the domain of human motivation and decision-making - and the predictable irrationalities in the same. Their studies have also shown that 'relational rewards' work better than 'monetary rewards' in many circumstances, though relational rewards have the disadvantage of raising relational expectations. Please note that this does not negate the 'power of carrot and stick' . We can always say that while relational rewards ('relational carrots') and different from 'monetary/transactional rewards' ('transactional carrots') - they are still 'carrots' - carrots that appeal to higher order needs (say in Maslow's hierarchy of needs). Again, it has been suggested that monetary incentives work best in the case of simple tasks (tasks involving straight forward physical or mental activity; i.e. tasks that don't require creativity) where higher performance is just a matter of trying harder and where the performance can be measured accurately. This also need not necessarily create problems for the 'power of carrot and stick theory' as this is more about the relative effectiveness of carrots. We must also note that there is an intense debate going in between 'rational choice economists' and 'behavioral economists' - regarding the applicability of the findings from behavioral economics experiments. It has been argued that we are quite rational in most circumstances (i.e. in our natural habitat/ in familiar situations) and these predictable irrationalities surface mainly in in unfamiliar circumstances and that the conditions created in some of the behavioral economics experiments are quite unnatural (i.e. not representative of the conditions faced by most people most of time in the real world). Even the very definition of rationality is open to debate (e.g. rationality can be defined narrowly - just as a consistent system of preferences/consistent response to incentives - even if these preferences might not be 'good' for the decision maker - as judged by the society)!

Note 4: It can be argued that all the leadership/management actions involve influencing and hence some element of manipulation (as it involves getting a person to do something that he/she would not have done otherwise). Now, whether this manipulation is for a ‘good’ cause (and for whose ‘good’) will bring us close to the domain of ethics (and the tricky terrains of situational ethics vs. code ethics, individual good vs. collective good, good of one collective vs. good of another collective etc.). For example, if my manager gives me some information that opens my mind (e.g. by enabling me to see some possibilities that I was not able to see before), I might get inspired (and do something that I might not have done otherwise). But if my manger gives me the additional information selectively, so that I will see only those new possibilities that he/she wants me to see (e.g. so that I will take some particular action) then the element of manipulation creeps in. Yes, the line between 'management and manipulation' or that between 'influencing and manipulation' can be a very fuzzy one!